Diagnosis

Eventually, I could not afford to stay in Rome and decided to move to the United States.  I went to live in Washington, D.C. staying with Nancy and Sandy from Tokyo days.  I found an apartment in Van Ness and a job with a law firm.  One evening I went to a school play of their daughter’s and discovered that I couldn’t see out of my left eye.  I made an appointment with an optometrist recommended by the woman I was temping for at the time.  I sat in the dark while the Dr. peered into my eyes.  Finally, he asked his colleagues to come in and have a look.  They had a quick conference out in the hallway.  

Finally, he re-entered the room.  He looked very concerned and he said I am afraid Ms. Laws you have a lump in your eye.  I nearly fainted.  What could that mean?  Well, you have a melanoma growing on your optic nerve and we must remove it as soon as possible as it has metastasized.  And how do you do that?  Well, we don’t do it, you will have to go to Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia and they will perform the surgery.  What kind of surgery?  I am afraid you will have to lose your eye.  Either that or you will die and melanoma is highly lethal and your chances of survival are only 50/50 with the surgery.

So off I go to George Washington University Medical Center for a liver scan, blood tests, a mammogram, x-rays of every bone in my body; off I go to Walter Reed Hospital for a sonar scan of the eye.  Then I go to Wills Eye Hospital to visit with Dr. Jerry Shields, one of the world’s specialists in this kind of cancer.  Radioactive isotopes were inserted and surgery was scheduled for the next day.  Meanwhile, I was trying to track down Walter who was in Tanzania.  Eventually, the American Red Cross found him and I will give him credit that he flew to D.C. although by the time he got there it was all over.

I then started recuperating and having lost the apartment and the job, in D.C., started to plan on returning to Rome if I could get a vacant job possibility with Brown Daltas that he had arranged.  I got the job and started to organize myself to return to Rome.